DATA WAITING GAME

You can't blame carriers for being single-minded in their focus on driving users to their wireless data networks. They've spent billions in software overlays, new infrastructure, handset subsidies and spectrum licenses — they want to make that money back. But that pursuit might be hindering the nascent data industry more than helping. It seems that carriers and developers alike are snubbing technologies that don't have a direct or obvious link back through the packet data network, focusing mainly on applications that boost megabits traversing their airwaves. One gets the impression that if it doesn't have an over-the-air component, the industry isn't interested. That's the wrong way to look the market. For all the hype about network connectivity, users — especially consumers — look at their handsets primarily as consumer electronic devices. Users would be willing to do so much with more with their phones, like listen to music for one. But because the bandwidth over today's networks is still narrow and over-the-air-downloads of individual songs next to impossible, the industry has given short shrift to the idea of the handset becoming a digital music player. All the arguments of converged versus separate devices aside, many users would jump at the opportunity to have iPod-type functionality in their phones. There may not be any over-the-air downloads for some time, but if you get the consumer acclimated to the idea of using his phone for taking a picture or recording a video, then their willingness to use the network to send that picture or upload that video — naturally follows.